crazyburn87 Reviews

Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (2023)

I fell asleep doing this movie

[3/10 · 6 May 2024]

When this movie came out it was like nobody knew it where coming out, and now I see why.

The animators who worked on this movie get all the credit because it is a very pretty movie, but the story is boring and flat with a distracting use of pop music.

It's the cliché story of a main character that makes dump decisions because their parents didn't tell them the full story of why they have a rule of staying away from the ocean, we gotta have conflict or no movie, but I just wish they had chosen a more interesting angle surrounding the mythos of a beast like the Kraken

The movie ends with TV series bait hinting at "fun" adventures battling kiju but after this, I wouldn't even have a show with this run in the background.

I watched it because it was on streaming, but I would not recommend anybody to watch it unless you have trouble sleeping.

The Hunt (2012)

If you can watch this movie blind, do that!

[10/10 · 25 June 2023]

I hadn't come around to watch this movie for years but tonight I choose to watch it, since the service it's on will expire in a few days.

Now, it's said that you should also buy art that you don't like, because it will make you think and ponder on why you don't like it. It makes you feel something within you.

I hate this movie. I love, how much I hate this movie. They quickly set you up to care for all the right people and when the plot gets going, you will feel uncomfortable, resentful and lose pretty much all hope for humanity. Or at least that's what I feel.

I can understand why all characters react as they do, but the herd mentality is just painful to watch and feels more real than it should.

I'm gonna stop writing now, because I feel like I could discuss this movie for hours without end, and I'll spare you that!

The Lure (2015)

HC Andersen's original story in modern day

[7/10 · 22 January 2023]

"The Lure" was not what I expected when I came across it on Netflix while scrolling past a sea of familiar films, but I'm happy I gave it a shot.

It's a surreal story about two mermaid sisters that makes a deal with group of musicians that work in a club where the sisters sing and show some tail.

While there one of the sisters falls for the bassist/guitarist despite the warnings and disapproval of her sister which is also how we get the real ending of "The Little Mermaid" as written by HC Andersen but with the addition of a sister who also functions as the dark side of the mermaid people.

A pretty decent musical, which I'm not a big fan of, with amazing special effect make-up and costumes, and theatrical scenes that pushed the story forward without much dialogue but without getting you lost in the narrative.

And of course it's in Polish so unless you speak the language or have a fear of reading subtitles, then maybe skip this one 😉

Office Invasion (2022)

Office Space, but with aliens!

[3/10 · 21 January 2023]

I came across this on Netflix and gave it a blind watch, and it was a really bland experience.

It starts out with a security guard getting a surprise from the boys which quickly switches out to a nasty surprise for him, and he's turned into the meal of an alien all happening off-screen.

We are then introduced to a Office Space plot for the next one-and-a-half hours before the alien plot even starts again and we are introduced to your three main characters and some side characters who only seems to exist to make our protagonist's lives miserable.

Sam the company geologist who is a father to a girl with a skin condition which is very expensive to treat, so when he get fired from his job he recruits he's two office pals to steal the rare metal only their company mines to sell on the black market.

Junior the spineless security guard and Prince the spoiled rich kid who only works at the company to get his trust fund, who also is even more spineless than Junior (Who needs diversity right). Both have no character development except for maybe Junior if you count asking his long-time crush out on a date as that.

Overall the comedy is mediocre at best, mostly people are just annoying and almost nothing that's set up in this almost 2 hours long film comes to a fulfilling conclusion making it worth your while to set through it.

I'd recommend only watching this if you're have thing for bad writing. Since the visuals are not bad, camera work, effects and music are decent but the writing was not saveable by the acting.

At least people got a paycheck.

The Menu (2022)

When success kills

[8/10 · 14 January 2023]

As a person with a "Tyler" in the family this film hit the spot, and the message gave me some food for thought, especially now that Noma is closing down.

The constant hunt for success and perfection can be haunting, and for the consumers that want to bask in the success. Using the restaurants as status symbols, without caring about the staff that devoted their loves into a meal soon forgotten.

The level of horror in this film does not come from jumpscares or violent gore, but from the world of reality and the lack of joy in a once joyful position.

It is a film, slow-moving when it need to be. Precise when it needs to be. Fast, when it needs to be.

Just like the menu, this film is not meant to be seen. But experienced, thought about, talked about.

Watching this film has inspired be to write as pretentious as I possible can, and if I failed... Then watch the film, and think why that's a good thing.

Snack vs. Chef (2022– )

Glorifying the worst of the food industry

[3/10 · 29 December 2022]

With episode one is was kinda interesting for them to talk about how Flaming-Hot Cheetos are made, and to see then make their own versions.

But already at season two the level of praise towards these super unhealthy snacks are insane! They talk about Princles like it's the perfect snack sent by the Gods.

Had this shown been more about creating types of snacks instead of recreating known brands, this would have gone down better. However, right now you get product placement the show, and if you told me that each of the brands they recreate paid for each episode, I would believe you.

Talented people in a concept I can't support, but I'm also biased with me preferring my portato products to taste like potato.

Out of Tune (2019)

Tried to run with Dark comedy classics...

[5/10 · 7 December 2022]

... but falls flat on its face.

Out of Tune (De frivillige) seems to try and follow the Dark comedy theme that a lot of Danish comedies are known for such as Flickering Lights (Blinkende Lygter), The Green Butchers (De Grønne Slagtere), Adam's Apples (Adams Æbler) and more.

But for this story, the humour is just not there.

The movie takes place in a prison where our protagonist (Markus) is put in remand for financial crimes for a few months before sentencing. While there he gets jumped for owing 3 million to a ganster that does not understand how stocks works.

After this, he accepts to do voluntary isolation even though he does not like the idea of being near sex criminals, who usually take voluntary isolation in order to void the other inmates.

A few weeks after what seems to be a depression Markus accepts to join the prison choir, led by the prisoner Niels, who seems to love the structure and rules in prison more than the free world he came from.

At the moment Markus sets his mind to ending the tyrannical rule of Niels and take over power himself, and it is slowly revealed that Markus the man was not as beloved as he saw himself outside of prison creating a mirror image of his true character.

The social commentary is kinda there but the story is not very entertaining, and the humour is not absurd enough to land the jokes.

If you want to watch a movie where criminals fight with both internal and external forces, and still sympathise with them in the end?

Then find Flickering Lights instead, at least that one got symbolism and funny jokes.

House of the Dragon: The Princess and the Queen (2022) Season 1, Episode 6

"Hey let's just reboot it now!"

[2/10 · 10 October 2022]

I can't say for sure that's the thought the showrunners had but this is how this episode felt.

I spend the first 5 minutes wondering: "who is this woman given birth?" I was so confused I thought they showcased the princess' birth in a flashback sort of thing because they changed out the two main actresses!

Now from here you need to buckle your seatbelt because every episode from here on is a time jump, which means they change out actors left and right, just like they did in Game of Thrones... No wait! In Game of Thrones, they took their time developing characters. Granted they did change a few people out like the Mountain, but key characters stayed the same.

This show is just a cash grab, with the actors trying to salvage the material given by the writers, and for the first time I've experienced a show where it feels like a reboot halfway through, without it being a sitcom where they acknowledge switching out people.

House of the Dragon: We Light the Way (2022) Season 1, Episode 5

We got action now, and it's kinda meaningless!

[5/10 · 20 September 2022]

First off, I had forgotten I was watching this show and was reminded when a Facebook "friend" wrote about a specific tune in this episode 😉 I have no idea which song that could be, I didn't notice it on my viewing

( I'm talking about some major plot spoilers for this episode after this line )

However, I have started noticing that they LOVE giving us a new character only to kill them off right away, and often we get no real character put into them, making their deaths kinda pointless.

First is Daemon's wife. We have heard that he has a wife but never been introduced. Well now we have and she's already written out.

Then we have the lover. He's new. I wonder what effect... Oh no he's dead in a random act of violence that they kinda tried to setup but did not really make sense, since the killer already had messed everything up and their deaths would not really help anybody?

In GoT they would do the same, but in GoT they would give the character a little something called, screen time. It would be a full episode at least but usually two or three so we have time to learn their stories. You know, for emotional weight.

It all feels rushed and super slow at the same time, kinda the only thing I'm really impressed with at the moment.

The Thing About Pam (2022)

"Uh so people like that Tiger King?"

[1/10 · 16 September 2022]

That seems like the thought process form the creators of this show when they chose to take real criminal, who is still waiting trial for the crime in question, and made a "fun" dark comedy true crime story.

Insensitive trash, and I hate that Judy Greer got tangled into this. She deserves better.

May the butts of the creators behind this show be forever itchy and their arms to short to reach.

(just filler from here to reach the 600 char minimum) My review is too short so the reason why Tiger King was fascinating. Tiger King fascinating to watch because it featured real people who all were kind of bad, and here we got actors making an impression of a bad person.

Pinocchio (I) (2022)

It's... a live-action Disney remake...

[5/10 · 15 September 2022]

So this might be the first of the remakes I didn't hate, but I also don't love it.

It's easier to digest since Pinnochio still looks like the animated version, so much that he still gives of a cartoon feel, and most of the time he doesn't feel like he's in the world. It does not help when the actors pick him up, Pinnochio glides around because of the tracking. Tracking is hard, but still distracting.

The voice acting from Benjamin is great though, and I enjoyed Tom Hanks' performance from what he had to work with. But it feels like they are trying to add more to Geppetto which is not really fleshed out, but Hanks did have the two jokes at the last 30 minutes that made me laugh.

The overall story pretty much follows the 1940s version, with a few changes but it somehow feels rushed, even though this version is 20 minutes longer.

I did like the scene where Pinnochio lies and the ending.

It's enjoyable but the original skill packs a better punch.

House of the Dragon (2022– )

Well... It's more Game of Thrones... sort of...

[5/10 · 9 September 2022]

Quick update: I'm now at episode 5 and when speaking to my sister about which shows I'm watching on HBO, and I totally forgot I was watching this. That's how forgettable this show is.

So, the story of House of the Dragon takes place about 200 years before GoT, and personally I can feel that, but not in a good way.

The series starts with exposition about who's gonna rule when the king dies a man or a woman, and surprise! It the woma... No it's the man. I got no problem with that, but where Game of Thrones was shocking, and kept you on the edge of your seat each week! This feels bland and uninteresting.

I literally couldn't care less if they killed the main character at this point, because I don't care about any of these people.

I've also been taken a bit away with the dragons in the show. Not the much the design, I quickly got used to the very long neck and fishy kind of tail on the red dragon. But I don't feel like they blend in as good as they did in GoT. This could be because the budget is smaller for this show but I don't know.

I'm probably gonna keep watching the season, but if they don't start turning down the political BS, and start bringing some character for me to care about, that's probably all I'm gonna watch.

If you have high expectations for the show, I would say kill them like they killed Oberyn Martellin in GoT, because it will not live up to that.

If you have no expectations, then yeah, I'd recommend... I'd recommend just watching Game of Thrones because then you probably didn't watch that 😉

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

It's okay

[5/10 · 9 September 2022]

Christian Bale does a wonderful job as Gorr the God Butcher and Natalie Portman bring back some great emotional scenes between her and Hemsworth.

That said, this Thor movie is trying to be Ragnarock, but they thought by putting even more jokes into it and even more VFX it would be better, but it just turned out average. There were even times when all the VFX pulled me out of the movie and just became noise.

I'm also a big fan of Taika Waititi's humour and style, but the jokes had very little room to land in this film and most of the time just boring puns.

Worst of all, the movie is super predictable and where Ragnarock worked because if character interactions which brought the humour, this has very little interaction between characters which might be why I didn't find this film that good.

If you are a Marvel fan you don't need my recommendation, you probably would like this review, but if you are a woman like one of my ex's that just love to watch hunky dudes in movies where the plot kinda dosen't matter for you, then I would recommend it. Hell! The movie actually kinda joke about that.

American Horror Stories (2021– )

AHS Scraps...

[5/10 · 30 August 2022]

That is what season 1 of American Horror Stories feels like. Like the rejected ideas and first drafts that they sold as a "new" show.

I was interested when I read that it was a AHS spinoff but with individual short stories like what we have with Love Death + Robots and Black Mirror.

What we got was more of the Murder House for the majority of season 1 and some boring episodes except for Baal, which was the only one with a interesting story.

Don't give me wrong though, Sierra McCormick is carrying the Murder House parts which is an achievement, considering what she got to work with.

If you love AHS and want more from the creators, and want to watch something where you don't need to think, well then give it a watch. But there are better things to spend your time on.

American Horror Stories: The Naughty List (2021) Season 1, Episode 4

2 stars for Danny Trejo getting work

[2/10 · 28 August 2022]

I'm only sad that he's not getting better work than this.

I love it when satire becomes so good you question if its real or not. This ain't that.

The Boys are setup to be terrible people, and hey they do that pretty well, but nothing that they do is used for a setup which gets used as a punishment against them in a moral justise kind of way. They just get killed and that's kinda it.

The last death scene was the only thing that kinda was setup, but the guy reacting to it, was not even the one who did the setup, and a better ending would have been of he didn't realise or had ignored it.

If you hate the likes of Pauls and influenser houses, fine, but that does not make this good, well written, or well acted.

Only good thing was Danny Trejo, and he just did his menacing presence that he can do by dropping his warm smile.

Stranger Things: Chapter Nine: The Piggyback (2022) Season 4, Episode 9

I'm done

[5/10 · 2 July 2022]

I didn't rush to watch this whole season since I was already getting tired of the show last season, then I finally watched it and I kinda like the back story part for Eleven, and but I mostly enjoyed the parts where Nancy and Co tried to figure out the whole mystery which spans out through the whole series.

But. There are way too many characters in the show at the point where it gets messy and I don't care anymore.

We get introduced to new characters just for them to serve as cannon fodder for the horror part of the show, since they don't have the guts to kill a main character from the original show and create an actual emotional impact.

But worst of all. They lead up to and epic ending where they finally will destroy the evil and this time not only by using Elevens powers. But no. We're getting another drawn-out season on Stranger Things.

Yay.

Metal Lords (2022)

Detroit Rock City meets School of Rock

[7/10 · 7 May 2022]

Maybe it was my low expectation. Maybe it was my love for metal. Maybe this is just a really good and wholesome movie. A Movie about the trials of friendship, acceptance, and growing into your own person.

That's kinda all I want to say about this movie. It has a few flaws, but a strong message that is good for most people to take to heart.

Bloodshot (2020)

VFX Break Down The Movie

[5/10 · 7 May 2022]

I layed back in my bed. Snacks at hand and ready to see what my streaming service could offer. And I came across a Vin Diesel movie. I prepared myself for some cheese and not just the one on my chips.

The movie follows Vin Diesel who gets killed and is rebuilt as a super-soldier on a trail of vengeance, but quickly you'd notice something is off about this whole thing.

Comparing this to Universal Soldier and Robocop is not far off, but in this movie they added a sprinkle of Superman to the batter, which unfortunately creates a dense and heavy cupcake of a movie with a boring flavour for our main character.

If you enjoy pretty decent CGI and VFX mixed with some mindless violence that would make you feel like a God if this had been a video game, then I'd recommend this movie. If not then skip this one or watch it on a day with a hangover.

I enjoyed it for what it is. Mindless fun that tried to be smart, but ended up being predictable at every turn.

Squid Game (2021– )

A "fun" look into human nature

[8/10 · 20 March 2022]

I came late into watching Squid Games since I knew I needed to have my head in the "game".

First episode is a great introduction of the main character and how brutal the games are. But, even now brutal the games are portrait I had a worse feeling in my body watching episode 2 with the appropriate title "Hell".

These first two episodes tell you more or less all you need to know about the main cast to establish a relationship with them and there own problems, creating a greater understanding.

The show has a few side stories that I kinda didn't care that much about and seems like padding more than anything else and didn't really seem to pan out anything in the show.

For the last episode I like it up until the last few minutes where I had a: "Oh no! They are gonna make a season 2!?!" and a few searches online affirmed my feelings. I don't mind a new season, but I'd rather they rounded of this story and then just made a new one for season 2, but you know, gotta have them cliffhangers.

Good show, a kinda unsatisfying end.

Gretel & Hansel (2020)

Not a Blumhouse, thank the sky!

[6/10 · 23 January 2022]

To the people mad about the story is weak, here is a recap of the original story it's based on: Hansel and Gretel's parents are very poor so the mother convinces their father that's it is better to leave them all to leave the kids in the forest to their faith.

They try to leave breadcrumbs so they can find their way home, but birds and critters eat them, leaving them lost.

They then find a house made of cake which they start to eat. Turns out a witch lives there, she invites them in and feeds them, but pretty quickly she locks Hansel in a cage and Gretel helps clean. Gretel saves Hansel by tricking the witch to show her how she's supposed to clean the oven and she ends up cooking the witch.

Hansel and Gretel escape, Hansel is presumably now overweight since he was ready to be eaten, and they find their way home where the mother is now dead and only the father is alive.

Gretel and Hansel have chosen to be a female-driven story in a more direct way, and I'm for one happy about it. Yeah there are some parts of the story that could have been left out, and the visuals and great acting from the side of our Gretal and Witch saves the film.

I put off watching the movie for a while since I'm not a horror fan, in the Blumhouse sense, jump scares are not my thing, and this is no Blumhouse film happy to say. It's slow and dreadful like the world it's set in.

Not a movie for everyone, but a more interesting version of the original Grimm tale.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond (2020–2021)

The show where you'd wish they'd kill people off...

[4/10 · 20 December 2021]

... but instead, they just add more of them, and they are more and more unlikeable.

To be honest, when I started the show I was curious since I like the first season of the original show, and watched one until maybe season 4 before getting tired of that one.

Here it seemed like there was a more complex story than just surviving and it had promise up until episode 3, then you start guessing the main plot if not before that, and you just wish somebody would be killed off, but nobody seems to die, at least not, at episode 6 that I'm currently on and they are trying to invoke some emotion on some new people they just added, and I couldn't care less to be honest.

It's also around E6 that a trend I've been seeing in newer shows, where the leaders seem to be the less intelligent people on earth, and this one even have the highest education of them all... What's up with that!?!

Oh well, I'm challenging myself to watch S1 to the end, hey and if it's an ending worth waiting for I'll edit this and tell you, if not, then watch something old you've seen before and love.

Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021)

Great start but fell flat at the finish line

[5/10 · 19 August 2021]

I really enjoyed this show in the beginning but unfortunately, it became predictable when it came to big storylines and twists, and I started to get the feeling that this show would not have an ending, and yeah it's an open ending so a season two can happen, or at least that's how it feels like.

The acting was the only thing that made me watch it to the end, but a messy story with no real climax or ending just killed it all, and I can't say I can recommend a watch.

Like I saw another person say, "I feel like I wasted my time"

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

Nic Cage Energi but with no screaming

[6/10 · 14 July 2021]

G. O. Parson heard they wanted to make an FNAF movie and then just made it happen!

TBH I don't care about FNAF so this was a perfect dumb fun movie, where they places some extra actors in there as sacrifices since we can't kill of Cage even in a... horror movie?

If you are the type that's not great with horror movies then this is great for you, or if you've played FNAF and stuck in the game for some reason, then watching these possessed animatronic get their ass handed to them maybe a good release, since the movie got practically no tension or jump scares, just a silent Nic Cage being a badass!

Not a masterpiece but enjoyably.

Thunder Force (2021)

Started well, fell flat, had a few laughs

[4/10 · 18 May 2021]

It had some potential in the beginning but the direction of the actors made most of the movie flat and uninteresting, which is great if you wanna "watch" a movie while playing a casual game on your phone.

Thinking back, most of my laughs, if not all of them had Jason Bateman in them, who seems to just do his thing with what he got, making the scenes where he's a main part, or just supporting, enjoyable.

If you just wanna turn off your brain and relax with your favorite handheld game, but also want to half-watch a movie, I would recommend this one. But if you want to be fully entertained by a movie... Skip this one.

Jupiter's Legacy (2021)

Worth a watch, but unfocused

[5/10 · 8 May 2021]

Just finished watching the show... or I watched most of it.

I usually play some kind of game that doesn't take up too much attention when watching series and these shows have moments where my attention was mostly on the show and not on my game, at least in the first half of the show.

This season is an origin story mixed with the struggle of the new generation have with the old after more heroes have started to get killed, and the supers follow the codex of not killing anybody.

It started okay but they lost me a lot with the origin story part, especially at the end where you feel like a crowd of Monty Python extras yelling, "Get on with it!" and then they did that and you felt a bit empty.

The ending of the last episode is also a little bit flat for my taste, but I won't spoil it just in case.

The amount of violence is miles away from what I expected, after seeing some clips from the animated version that's being made, and to be honest, I think I might enjoy that version more. If you've seen "The Boyz" and know the amount of gore in that, then except a max of 25 % or less in this. But again the gore in "The Boyz" is a big part of the storytelling and this show seems to be more focused on the struggle of being pure good, while also being a family... a lot of themes mixed in this one.

It's worth a watch, but I hope S2 will be more focused which the show kinda lacks right now.